


The Unbreakables

by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: A Writer Looks at Her Choices, A Writer Looks at Her Life, Actually That Might Be an Insult to the Mafia, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Mob, At Last I am Free of It, Gun Violence, I've Had This Story Idea In My Drafts for Over a Year, Is This My Excuse to Dress Lucy in All the Sexy Flapper Dresses I Want?, Masturbation, Maybe - Freeform, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Rittenhouse is Mafia, Rough Sex, This Was Supposed to be 10k Tops, Wall Sex, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 21:48:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19798435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/pseuds/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels
Summary: Chicago, 1929. A bureau agent. A mob princess. A police officer deep undercover.What could possibly go wrong?





	The Unbreakables

**Author's Note:**

> Until 1935, the FBI was known as the Bureau of Investigation or the BOI.

_Chicago, September 1929_

“You lied to me!”

The phrase was snapped like a cracking whip as Lucy Preston brought all of her considerable wrath to bear down on the tall dark-haired man at whom she was hurling books. Garcia Flynn—known to her until that morning as John Firth—dodged a well-worn copy of _Canterbury Tales_ as it went flying towards his head. “Lucy—”

“Don’t you dare,” Lucy hissed, shoving a lock of brunette hair out of her face. She had to hiss, she had to scream, or she’d start sobbing instead. She was terribly afraid that Flynn knew this. “Don’t you dare even try—you lied to me!”

She picked up another book, but Flynn darted forward and grabbed her wrist, yanking the book out of her hand. “Yes, yes I lied to you.”

“For five _years_ —”

“I know, I know, Lucy, I’m sorry, I could never—find the right time—”

“The right time!? How about during one of our late-night chats, or when you were walking me home from a Shakespeare performance, or when we sat alone in the opera box or at any of the other dozens, hundreds of times we were alone together! Would it have killed you, would it have been so hard to say it? Would it have killed you to trust me!?”

“I do trust you—Lucy—”

“I told you everything.” Lucy wrenched her arm away, realizing she was swaying dangerously into his space, and sat down heavily on the bed as her legs gave out. “I trusted you—more than anyone, more than—I told you about Amy, I shared everything with you—”

Flynn obligingly passed her a handkerchief. “Lucy. I’m sorry. I thought that—if I told you it would put you in danger. I wanted to keep you safe, that’s—it’s not just my job, it is my honor, it is—everything, to have you safe. And I—the longer it went on the harder it was to admit, to tell you, because it meant you might think that I was using you and I’m not, I would never—”

“I have no one, Flynn!” The name sat ill on her tongue at first but the more she used it the more she realized it fit him. _Firth_ had never sat quite right in her heart. “I have no one but you—the one person I could love and—”

She realized her error and oh, she would have given anything to take back the words, but they were out now. Her secret of nearly five years was out.

She hadn’t been in love with him to start. Not when he’d been so damn… so damn… such annoying sarcastic smarmy acerbic obstinate stubborn _trash_. But over time… yes, yes she had come to love him. She loved him still, even now, even with the painful truth now raw and bleeding between them like a rapidly-filling gulf.

Flynn looked devastated. “Lucy.” His voice broke. “Lucy, you—I know that—you still know me. You do. Everything that I’ve told you is true. You know me, Lucy, do you—”

He cut himself off, taking a large step forward and falling to his knees in front of her, taking her shoulders in his hands, hands that she’d thought so safe, hands she’d thought would secure her. “I didn’t know how to tell you and I should have found a way, as painful and awkward as it would have been. You’re right. But please, _please_ , understand that you knowing about me would have put you in danger. I will beg your forgiveness until Armageddon but you have to understand, I was doing it to protect you, and because I’m a stupid, foolish man in love and I had no way to tell you any of it.”

Everything, everything tilted on its axis.

Lucy stared at him, her chest heaving, marking the devastation in the lines of Flynn’s face. She had always understood—Flynn wore a wedding ring. Even years after his wife had died. What else could she think, when they had known each other for so long and he had never once—how could she come to any conclusion other than—if he’d known her, all this time, and had—and felt—surely—

If he loved her, then why did he lie to her?

Why did anyone lie to someone they loved. Why did Amy not tell Lucy her thoughts before she was made to disappear. Why did Lucy try to hide the vodka from Flynn. Why, why, why.

Why else?

To protect them.

“Could you… repeat that last part?” she asked faintly.

“I’m stupid…”

“No, no the… you said you were…” She reached up, laying her hands over his.

“I love you,” Flynn whispered. “I’ve loved you from the start. Even if it did take a few months to realize that was what it was.”

The thing was—Lucy could understand why he had hidden it from her. She would have done the same in his shoes, to protect him. In their shadowy world, secrets had the power to make a man but they also had the power to break him, and knowledge could be as deadly as ignorance—perhaps even more so.

“I thought that if I told you who I was… I would put you in danger. If your mother or Cahill found out, if anyone found out, the truth then you would only be safe if you were ignorant. Your sister proved that Rittenhouse has no problem hurting those who betray them even if those people are family. Even if your mother didn’t kill you, I knew that she would do something to—to hurt you, to make your life miserable, even more than it already was, and what use was my telling you when—when it could only hurt you and not help you?”

Lucy looked down at her hands, over his, and then looked back up into Flynn’s face.

Would she have done the same in his shoes? Quite possibly. To help Flynn, in any way, to prevent him from carrying another burden, she would have.

“Say it again, please.”

As in everything, Flynn obliged her without hesitation. “I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you, I love you, as many times as you want to hear it, Lucy, I love yo—”

She kissed him with everything in her, and tasted salt.

Five years of waiting, and now with nothing more between them, all differences and secrets and decorum torn to shreds, she kissed him with a hunger she hadn’t even known until recently. A selfish, clawing hunger, a hunger she wanted to indulge until she had gorged herself on it.

Flynn at last tore his mouth away from her and her chest heaved as she inhaled, lungs burning, only for Flynn to fasten his mouth to her neck, to the swell of her breasts, her jaw, never once stopping in his starving exploration of her skin. Yes, yes, _this_ , this had been what she’d longed for.

She yanked him back up to her and kissed him again, until her lips stung and her jaw ached. “I forgive you,” she whispered. “But you have to remember.”

“Remember what.”

“Remember your promise to me.”

Flynn closed his eyes as if in pain, then nodded. “It will not come to that, _moja ljubav_.” He brought her hand up and kissed her knuckles. “It will not.”

And yet. It might.

* * *

_Chicago, August 1928_

A little over a year ago, Wyatt Logan was called into the office of his boss and told he was going undercover.

Being a member of the BOI had been rewarding, at first. It was enough of a change from the war that Wyatt felt the difference, appreciated, but it was enough of the same thing that he didn’t feel like a fish out of water or like he had to adjust to the point of discomfort.

Now, though—now his job, like everything else, left him with this hollow, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Ever since… ever since Jess had died last year, he’d been adrift. Angry, with no way to channel it. Nothing to do about it. Just—stuck.

Apparently, his superiors thought that the best remedy was a change of pace. Wyatt had been tapped for a dangerous, but prestigious, assignment.

Way back in the day, before the draft, he had gotten away from his asshole of a father by running moonshine across the Texas-Mexican border. It seemed that this plus his records as a soldier made him a prime target for Rittenhouse recruitment.

“Nobody’s gotten a mole into Rittenhouse,” Wyatt pointed out. Rittenhouse Mafia, comprised of various families operating under a single banner, so to speak, was going toe to toe in Chicago with the likes of Bugsy Malone and Al Capone. And so far, they’d managed to be air tight when it came to undercovers, finding every one and sending them back in pieces with a _nice try_ note attached.

Maybe not literally on the note part. But Wyatt had heard stories.

“You’ll be the first, then,” was the response that he’d gotten.

His specific assignment: get close to Lucy “Princess” Preston, daughter of Cahill, the head of Rittenhouse, and convince her to turn informant.

That was going to be easier said than done.

First of all, Lucy was the heir to the Preston arm of Rittenhouse and her biological father, Cahill, was keen on promoting her within the family and getting her to take an active part now that her legal father Henry was dead (long story, Wyatt didn’t know all the details). She was most likely indoctrinated thoroughly into their beliefs.

Second of all, she was going to be slow to trust.

Third of all—there was the matter of John Firth to consider.

John Firth was Lucy’s Eastern European war vet chip-on-his-shoulder bodyguard. Six foot four of solid muscle, he was never absent from her side. In fact, there was a theory that Firth was serving Miss Preston in more ways than one.

Wyatt could easily believe that. If he were Lucy Preston, he’d take advantage of having a bodyguard who looked like that.

Not—uh. If he was a woman. Which he was not. Which meant he didn’t…

Anyway.

This was probably a suicide mission, but who cared. If he died, he’d be reunited with Jess. If he succeeded, that was another group of criminals off the street.

Sounded like a win-win to him.

* * *

Lucy Preston didn’t ask to be born into a family of criminals.

She tried to make the best of it. Really she did. She tried to suggest alternate methods to her mother for things, she tried to encourage not being so hard on the local tenants and keeping the rent low, she tried—she tried.

Nobody made it easy, though.

Cahill, her biological father (but not her legal one—it was a long and complicated story and frankly she didn’t care) insisted that she be given more responsibilities as his daughter and as the heir to the Preston arm of Rittenhouse. Carol Preston was of the opinion that Lucy had not yet reached her ‘full potential’. The resultant back and forth was exhausting.

“If they’re going to keep me in the dark, then why have me as the heir anyway?” she snapped, yanking the pins out of her hair to send the dark waves tumbling down her back.

Her bodyguard, Firth, made an odd noise, but when she turned back he was hanging her coat up by the door. Lucy’s mother had allowed her enough freedom to live in a small apartment a block from her childhood home. It was just the one room, but Lucy loved it. It was the only thing that was hers.

Well, besides Firth.

That is—he wasn’t hers, of course, nobody could belong to anybody else in that way, and he didn’t—that was—well. He was the only person who she knew to be loyal to her, and not to Rittenhouse. That was all.

It wasn’t all that she wished for, but then, after five years of him guarding her, Lucy had gotten used to unrequited feelings.

Firth going around being tall, broad, dark and unbearably handsome didn’t really help matters, though.

“Your mother is overprotective.”

“Demanding, more like.” Lucy took off her earrings and kicked off her shoes, placing the former on her dresser. “Nothing I ever do is good enough for her.”

“Maybe she can sense that you don’t actually agree with the family business.”

Lucy sat down on the edge of her bed, catching sight of herself in the mirror. She knew what they said about her. “Princess Preston.” Everything handed to her in life. Poised to take over an empire—an empire that had aims and goals that stretched far, far beyond Chicago. She knew what they whispered, both about Rittenhouse’s plans, about getting Nicholas Keynes and Cahill’s son into politics, about the White House, about making certain ties in Europe—and she knew what they whispered about her.

None of it was very flattering.

Right now, she didn’t see a princess. Nor did she see the person she wanted to be. She saw a tired, exhausted, unhappy woman.

“Firth?” She had never called him John, his first name. It didn’t seem right, somehow.

Firth, who had put the kettle on in the kitchenette and was now searching for mugs, paused. “Miss Preston?”

“You know I had a sister?”

Firth slowly got down two mugs, then two teabags.

“I want coffee.”

“You’ll be up half the night if you have coffee.”

“Firth.” Lucy pouted.

Firth rolled his eyes. “You’re spoiled.”

“Only by you.”

He began to set up coffee instead, a small smile on his face. Lucy’s heart twisted. “I did… hear about Amy, yes.”

Lucy’s mood shifted back. Yes. Amy. “She was rebellious. I think—I think she was going to turn state’s witness. Go to the police. She and mother had this large fight… right beforehand… I know it wasn’t just a disappearance. I know—I know she was killed, I know it.”

Firth poured the coffee into mugs and brought a mug over for her. “You shouldn’t tell me these things.”

“Why, because you’ll tell my mother? You don’t tell her all the times we go to the theatre. Or when you let me go dancing. I know you won’t say anything. And… besides.” Lucy shrugged. “Crazy as it sounds, you’re the easiest person to talk to.”

Firth sat down at the small kitchen table. “Well, that makes sense. We’re both geniuses.”

Lucy snorted into her coffee, but she knew he was just trying to make her laugh.

“And we both have lost family,” Firth added quietly.

Lucy swallowed, looking up at him, meeting his dark gaze. She knew so little about Firth’s life. It wasn’t proper. But she did know he’d lost people close to him—a wife, judging by his wedding ring. “Who was it?”

Firth sighed. “Miss Preston…”

“How long have we known each other?”

Firth set down his coffee. “Why do you want to know? Why do you want to talk about Amy?”

“Can’t I want to talk about my sister?”

“We’ve known each other for five years, as you said. You’ve never once mentioned her.”

Lucy looked away, unable to hold his gaze. “I’ve been thinking about her, that’s all. About… what happened to her, and her choices.”

Firth went very, very still. “Miss Preston.”

“I was thinking, I’ll never be good enough for my mother,” Lucy whispered. “At the meeting today. I’ll never be good enough for her. But then I thought… why do I even want to be good enough for her? Why—what is it all for, when I know—this family, it’s a poison, it’s a cancer, a parasite, feeding off the city and they want more, like some kind of gluttonous—and I can’t escape and it feels like the walls are closing in—”

The way that Firth had gotten his job protecting Lucy had been saving her life. She had insisted she could drive and had fallen into the lake during a stormy night on the way home from a jazz club. Mother had been furious when she’d found out, and forbid Lucy from driving. She had furthermore insisted on a new bodyguard, since her last one clearly hadn’t done a good enough job.

She had offered the role to the man who had dived into the lake, yanking Lucy out of the car and drying her off, getting her home safe, cradling her as she sobbed.

Of course, Firth had then proceeded to be utter trash to her for the next six months, ornery and argumentative and—ugh.

In any case, it meant that Firth knew what she meant, knew Lucy’s claustrophobia. He got up and strode across the room until he was hovering over her. “What—what do you need—”

“I need _out_ ,” Lucy hissed. “I need air, I need to breathe, I need—”

“I can take you on a walk—”

“No, no that won’t work.” Lucy leapt to her feet before she realized she was even moving, grabbing Firth’s shirt. “I can’t _breathe_. I need to get out. Six years since Amy died, five since I nearly drowned, and an entire lifetime of—of being forced—I can’t do it, I need to be free.”

Firth gently grabbed her wrists, his thumbs rubbing against the soft skin just below her palms. “Miss Preston…”

“I’m dying like this,” she whispered. “I’m dying, I’m dying, I can’t breathe and I’m _dying_ —”

“You’re panicking—”

“Cahill wants me to run and Mother wants me to reach some—some impossible ideal, and I think she wants me to marry Keynes, and I—I can’t—”

“Lucy.”

He so rarely said her first name, it made her jump a little, broke through the panic.

Firth pressed his forehead to hers. “Breathe,” he whispered.

Lucy struggled to match her breathing with Firth’s, to take air in slow and deep and even.

“I have to get out,” she whispered. “I can’t do this anymore. I have to get out.”

“Then I’ll get you out.”

She wanted to believe him. So very badly, she wanted to believe him. Firth spoke with such conviction, sometimes she thought he’d stand between the world and her, or the world and whatever else he wanted to protect. That he’d stand against history, fate, faith, all of it, for something he cared about or something he believed in.

Lucy pulled back to look up into his face, shaking him using the fistfuls of his shirt. “If it doesn’t—Mother will tighten the noose even further, after the car, after Amy—you’re lucky she trusts you so much or we wouldn’t even be able to get away with what little we do. I can’t live like that.”

“…what are you saying.”

“I’m saying that if they try to—if they try to turn me into—into someone like them, someone who will kill their daughter because she betrayed them, someone who will just, just _use_ people—I won’t turn out like that.”

She had loved her mother so much as a child. And now she didn’t know how she felt about her. Her father—Cahill, that is—she hated him, always had. All of Rittenhouse she hated. Her greatest fear was that she would one day look in the mirror and see Cahill’s cold eyes or her mother’s hard mouth staring back at her.

“Lucy.” Firth carefully guided her back onto the bed, then handed her the mug of coffee back. Lucy gulped it down. “You couldn’t be like them. No matter what they did.”

But she could. She could feel it in her sometimes, that calculating coldness, that ferocity, that cunning. There were still things her mother could strip from her, things her mother could do, that would leave her without a rudder or a north star.

Things like realize how important Firth was for her and take him from her.

“I could… I could help,” Firth said, his voice rough and quiet. “I could get you out.”

She looked up at him. “How would you even manage it?”

“There are few things that are impossible with a little determination.”

Lucy couldn’t resist a little jab at one of their… previous adventures. “Things like burning down a warehouse?”

Nights out on the town sometimes went sideways.

“That was one time—” Firth realized she was teasing him and cut himself off with a rueful smile. “You are an incorrigible woman, you realize?”

“Takes one to know one.”

Firth rubbed at his forehead. “In all seriousness. Miss Preston.”

“Lucy.”

He looked at her, his hand falling down from his face. “Lucy. I can find a way to get you out. I don’t know how long it will take, but I will manage it.”

Lucy felt the warmth from the coffee mug, her fingers wrapped around it. “Promise me—promise me that you will get me out.”

“I promise.”

She could feel the air filling her lungs as she inhaled. Firth was always so loyal to her. So faithful. Protecting her, risking his life to give her freedom her mother didn’t allow—her mother would order Firth killed as an example if she knew about the dance clubs—sitting up late every night talking with her before he left to go to his own apartment, buying her books and discussing them with her, walking through history museums with her for hours without complaint.

If he did all of that—if she could ask it of anyone—surely she could ask it of him.

The darkness had been closing in for six years now. Since Amy. And at night, sometimes, when she had nightmares about being trapped in that car again, she didn’t want those strong arms yanking her to safety. She wanted to slide even further into the darkness. Because in her dreams, the darkness was warm and inviting, not cold, not wet, and she could melt into it and become a part of it.

“And promise me that if you can’t—if Mother truly means to send me to Washington with Keynes or something—something else—promise me that you’ll—you’ll free me another way.”

Firth’s face went pale, then flushed. “Lucy.” He sighed. “This is about the vodka I found under your bed last week, wasn’t it?”

“That has nothing—” Who was he to judge? Firth with his own burdens that he wouldn’t talk to her about but that he carried about his shoulders like a heavy cloak—he might not drink but she doubted he was any better in his head.

“Oh, nothing, just like wanting to go out dancing every night is nothing, scribbling frantically every day in your journal is nothing, it’s all _nothing_ —”

“I have nothing!” Lucy shouted. She stood up, downing the last of the coffee and crossing the room to dump the mug into the sink. “I have no one, I have my mother and my—that man who presumes to act like my father, as if he raised me, as if he did anything—and they try to control me, they are ruthless and selfish and—what else am I supposed to do? What else can I do, what else can I live for? This isn’t a life. Give me liberty or give me death.”

“All right, Patrick Henry,” Firth replied. He walked over to the table, downed his own coffee, and walked over to place his mug with hers in the sink.

Lucy reached for him again, feeling fragile, made of glass, ready to shatter. She caught his sleeve that time, fingering the cuff, the thin fabric seeming like some kind of metaphor for herself, stretched thin for so long.

“Promise me.”

“…I can’t promise…”

“I will have freedom one way or another. Or would you rather I did it myself?”

Firth went truly white in the face that time. She knew it was cruel, using his Catholicism against him, even as he struggled with belief—they’d had many discussions on the subject of faith.

“It won’t come to that,” Firth replied, grave. “I’ll get you out.”

Lucy wanted to believe him.

* * *

Flynn left Lucy once she was so tired she was stumbling in her words, resisting the urge to offer to tuck her into bed.

His first introduction to Lucy had been planned, as had been becoming her bodyguard.

Falling in love with her had not been.

Six years ago, ironically around the same time that Amy Preston has been forcibly disappeared, Det. Garcia Flynn of Chicago PD had been investigating some dirty cops.

It wasn’t strictly on assignment. And when he’d come across a name—Rittenhouse—he’d reported it to his superiors.

He’d woken up in the middle of the night a few days later to the sound of guns firing on his wife and five-year-old daughter.

Flynn had barely gotten out with his life, and it was only because Chief of Police Denise Christopher had believed him when he’d managed to flee to her house and hold her wife and two children hostage (not that he would’ve actually shot Michelle, or the children, but how else would Denise listen to this random man covered in blood and raving like a lunatic?) and hid him at her home until they could form a plan of action.

The plan? Replace Lucy Preston’s bodyguard with himself, under an assumed name with a fake backstory, and use that position to gain information on Rittenhouse.

Flynn had tracked Lucy to a jazz club, a place her mother would never approve of, and planned to get her current bodyguard incapacitated and subtly instigate a bar fight, from which he would rescue Lucy. Nothing too serious.

But then the whole thing with her bodyguard, Karl, hadn’t gone nearly so well as Flynn had hoped—it had been a disaster, frankly—and by the time he went back into the club, Lucy had left.

He’d hurried to catch up to her, unsure what his plan was—and then the rain-slick road had created an opportunity.

Flynn had watched, heart in his throat, as her car went into the water. He’d slammed on the brakes and flung himself after her, breaking the driver’s window and yanking her out, getting her onto the bank as she’d clung to him.

Carol Preston had offered him a job on the spot.

After that, Flynn had begun operating as John Firth, and had faithfully relayed information to Denise ever since by meeting Michelle at her waitressing job at a local diner. Slowly but surely, Lucy had begun to trust him and open up to him, and Flynn…

He’d fallen hard and fast.

Lucy was smart—painfully smart, and determined, and hardworking. She was also stubborn and opinionated, and they’d fought just about every day the first six months they’d known each other as Flynn had struggled with his crush and had been a Grade A idiot as a result and Lucy had, understandably, had no patience for it. They differed on issues of faith, morality, and history, or so they’d thought at first, only to spend hours and hours sniping at each other and eventually realize they weren’t so different in their beliefs as they’d first thought.

She was vibrant. Lively. She loved dancing. She could Charleston faster than anyone else Flynn had seen. She talked about wanting to go to Paris, to see Josephine Baker perform, to meet the Lost Generation, to breathe in the history of Notre Dame and the catacombs and the Louvre.

Flynn did all he could to get her to smile. Took her to see Shakespeare, the opera, smuggled her to dance clubs, to see jazz, all the things Carol Preston would kill him for if she knew—her daughter should only go to places when she could see and be seen, when she could accompany the right man to the family box seat, when she could be “Princess” Preston.

Lucy was being stifled. And now—now it was driving her to the edge.

Flynn had known that this sort of thing was a long time in coming. It wasn’t the first outburst he’d weathered with Lucy. But it was the first time she’d outright stated the truth that Flynn had been seeing in her for months now. The horrible, terrifying desire that sparked like madness in her eyes. It was why he wouldn’t let her drive the car anymore, why he would stay up with her and make coffee or tea and chat with her until she was falling asleep.

He didn’t dare leave her alone.

There was only so long that a plant could remain without sunlight before it withered and now—now they were reaching the breaking point.

He had to speak to Christopher, he had to get her out. He’d bought time by telling her that he would. Lucy of all people understood patience, understood that things took time to come together, especially something as delicate as this.

But that wouldn’t buy him forever.

And then—

Then motherfucking Wyatt Logan arrived.

Wyatt Logan was a moonshine runner from Texas who’d come up to Chicago to get some better action. Rittenhouse was taking him on, with Emma as his supervisor the way she was with all the runners.

He was also getting way too close to Lucy.

Of course, Lucy wasn’t—Lucy could get close to whoever she damn well wanted. But Wyatt—he was playing with fire and both he and Lucy would get burned.

He would chat Lucy up, bring her little presents, make her laugh. And God, Flynn wanted Lucy to laugh. He tried, but he wasn’t as lighthearted as Wyatt, and he could see that Wyatt was giving Luc something she needed.

But if Carol got wind of it… Carol and Cahill, who had Lucy’s future carefully planned out for her…

Oh, there was one other thing.

Wyatt Logan was a goddamn undercover cop.

Flynn could tell. He’d been able to tell since, well, almost the first instant. Wyatt had been sarcastic and surly to him and Flynn hadn’t liked the guy ever since, but that wasn’t what made him suspect Wyatt was undercover. It was in how loud Wyatt was, how he asked too many questions, how he pushed and pushed and pushed for information, to be included. It was too needy, dangerously so.

And if Wyatt was caught—if they found one undercover cop, they’d search every single person, up and down, to make sure there wasn’t another. Rittenhouse was convinced they were air tight but if Wyatt blew everything wide open, Flynn would be dead meat.

And Lucy would lose all chance of freedom.

Flynn waited to get Wyatt alone on the way back from another run. “Logan. Got a minute?”

Wyatt looked around, shrugged, then followed him into the side office that Emma used to tally up hours. Flynn and Emma hated each other. Had since the beginning. She’d thought he was getting too cozy with Lucy, he thought she needed to stop gathering blackmail on everyone—and he suspected that her ambitions weren’t limited to being a right-hand woman forever.

Neither of them could find any proof about the other, though, so it was a stalemate of mutual enmity.

“I know what you’re doing,” Flynn said.

Wyatt snorted. “Is this about Miss Preston? Because I can promise you—”

“That she likes it, yeah, Lucy’s an adult woman, she can make her own choices. This isn’t about that. This is about you being a cop.”

Wyatt’s face went a sickly green color and he spluttered a thousand half-assed excuses. Flynn held up a hand. “Listen. You make Lucy laugh. And if you go down, I go down. That’s why I’m talking to you about this instead of just leaving you out to dry.”

Wyatt folded his arms. “Why would you go down if I went down?”

“Just how thick are you? I’m undercover too.”

Wyatt shook his head. “No. No, you can’t be. The Bureau would’ve told me.”

“The Bureau? You’re from the goddamn BOI?” Flynn almost burst out into hysterical laughter. “Buddy I did not move to the fucking land of opportunity after the Great War so that some asshole from the goddamn BOI can ruin my five-year undercover mission.”

“Five year—there have been zero, _zero_ , successful undercover missions into Rittenhouse. If there were any—if there was anyone—I’d know.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Because nobody knows. Only one person—Denise Christopher. We couldn’t trust anyone else, all the cops in this city are fuckin’ dirty.”

A sly light entered Wyatt’s eyes. “Cops everywhere are fuckin’ dirty. My dad was a cop, beat me stupid.”

All right. So maybe Wyatt wasn’t all around bad.

“Either they’re being paid by Rittenhouse or they’re being paid by Capone or some other schmuck,” Flynn explained. “I lost my family—because I was investigating, found out some cops on Rittenhouse’s payroll, and Rittenhouse didn’t like that too much. I went straight to Denise, barely got out.”

“You went straight to the chief of police.”

“I knew she was clean. Since then I report only to her.” Flynn leaned into Wyatt’s face. “And if you’re caught? They’re going to tear this place to shreds trying to find anyone else. That means they’ll find me. And if they find me out, then Lucy is left alone. With no one.”

The very thought made something twist inside of him in a horrified, ugly kind of way.

“You might think that she’s a great woman and you might have fun flirting with her, but if you actually feel any sort of decent way about her—you’ll start listening to me. Because you do not want to expose her, or me, and you’ll do both if you keep at it. I’m your best chance for bringing Rittenhouse down.”

“No, Lucy is,” Wyatt hissed. “My job is to turn her, make her confess against her family in court.”

“There is no way you’re doing that without me,” Flynn asserted.

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_ , this was worse than he’d thought.

Turn Lucy? Put her in court? Keynes didn’t care a shit about her, he’d have her murdered on a moment’s notice. Carol wouldn’t want Lucy dead but she’d want her back in the fold, and she wouldn’t care if Lucy was all that happy about it in the process. Who even knew about Cahill.

He wanted to get Lucy out. He’d promised that he would get her out. But not like that.

But maybe—maybe he could turn this curse into a blessing. Maybe he could use this somehow.

But not without Wyatt fucking acting like this.

Flynn realized he was standing far too close to Wyatt, and that Wyatt was breathing fast and shallow, his pupils wide, dark, and his face a little flushed.

Flynn stepped back quickly.

“You want to turn Lucy Preston. That’s fine and dandy, but you’re not doing it by swooping in and bringing her flowers for a month. You can make her laugh. Great. But I’ve got five years on you, five years of supporting her and getting her to trust me. You want her? You need me. And I need you to actually start being good at your damn job or my head’s forfeit. So. We work together.”

Wyatt squinted at him, folding his arms. “And… Lucy. What about her? You’ve been her bodyguard for five years. You never tried to turn her?”

“Lucy is the one good thing in this entire organization. My job is to collect information, pass it on to Christopher, she uses that to cripple Rittenhouse’s business plans. Arrest their shipments, that kind of thing. Lucy records all of it in her journal, she tells me everything, even the things in the private meetings with the family heads, the things she shouldn’t tell me. And I pass it all on.”

“I bet she doesn’t like that.”

“She doesn’t know.”

“What the fuck are you two doing in my goddamn office?” Emma yelled, yanking the door open.

Ah, crap.

“Private conversation Emma, what’s it look like?” Flynn snapped back, putting his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder as an indication to Emma that Flynn was taking responsibility for this. This was on Flynn. He was high enough up on the food chain that Wyatt would’ve had to listen to him, and Emma would understand that.

Emma’s eyes narrowed and her jaw twitched, but she let it go, just told them to get the fuck out of her private space.

After that, Flynn had to start covering for Wyatt. Made some excuses, explained the ropes, showed him how things went.

Wyatt was still full of questions. He’d bring moonshine over to Flynn’s shitty one-room apartment and talk and talk and talk.

Clearly he needed someone. Didn’t have anyone else. And Flynn started explaining the last five years.

It was… it was a huge relief.

Lucy was the only person he had in his life that he cared about and he couldn’t even be fully honest with her. He had to hide the truth of himself from her because if she knew… she’d be in danger. If he was found out, and it was discovered that she knew and was feeding him information purposefully…

He didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t think about it.

Lucy hadn’t talked about it, not until that night a month or two ago. Amy. But this whole time, he’d heard the rumors. One moment she was the younger Preston daughter, causing trouble, rabble rousing, causing scandal.

The next she was gone.

He couldn’t let that happen to Lucy. That or worse.

But it meant that, well, it was all bottled up. He wasn’t going to spend his few minutes with Michelle at the diner telling her about his every thought and emotion. He just delivered the information.

Wyatt, though—Wyatt was in the same boat as Flynn. In more ways than one.

“Jess would be so disappointed in me,” Wyatt said one night, sprawled out on Flynn’s couch, a pile of loose limbs.

“Who’s Jess?”

“My wife. My—my dead wife.” Wyatt’s blue eyes were bright. “She was murdered by this—sick fuck—and it was my fault. I left her after an argument. I was all—jealous. We went to this speakeasy and she ran into this guy… doesn’t matter. And now I’m doing… this. Trying to turn a woman who—Lucy’s a real good person, you know? And the bureau isn’t gonna give a fuck about her. She’s a pile of information to them, she’s a tool. A hammer. Not a person.”

In response, Flynn told Wyatt about Lorena and Iris. Not just what had happened, but who they were. How Lorena had hummed songs and it would drive him nuts. How Iris would keep a collection of candle wax that had slid down from the candles and pooled onto the surface of the candle holder, and she’d take it out and smell it, admire the shapes and the feel.

Wyatt told Flynn about his abusive father. Flynn told Wyatt about his. They swapped war stories, compared battle scars one night in the dancing orange glow of the fire, the shrapnel scars on Wyatt’s back a counterpoint to the long thin scar on Flynn’s stomach and the pinched forever-shining-pink skin of his left hip.

He made Wyatt listen to _Rhapsody in Blue_. Wyatt made Flynn read pulp detective novels.

Slowly but surely, Wyatt Logan became… okay, he wasn’t any less of a pain in Flynn’s side. He was still very much that. But he noticed Wyatt becoming softer. Better able to articulate himself. More patient.

It was an interesting change to watch in slow motion across the weeks.

And meanwhile, Lucy patiently waited for Flynn to make good on his promise.

“We’ve got a mole,” Emma announced, walking straight up to the desk where Flynn was lounging.

There was a private meeting going on between Lucy and the family heads. Flynn’s throat went tight every time she went in there, terrified it would be the day they insisted Lucy take a more active role in the family business, or telling her that she was marrying some society drip, like Noah something, or worse, that she was marrying Keynes and going to Washington to help him in their… whatever they were calling their hostile takeover of the White House.

Flynn kept his expression neutral with a hint of disdain. “Oh? You know you can call pest control for those.”

“You think you’re so damn amusing. I mean a spy. Undercover.”

“That’ll be the day. The police are on our payroll for a reason, they’d tell us someone was coming in.”

“Pretty sure he’s not PD but higher up. BOI maybe.”

“Then you know who it is?” Flynn’s heart was hammering in his chest faster than a racehorse as he scrambled to think up an excuse for Wyatt. After all it was Wyatt, it had to be, who else had been so blatantly stupid?

(Even if his stupidity was a little endearing. And his honesty was a bit adorable, the way he couldn’t lie, the way he walked into a room and everyone ignored him when Wyatt tried to tell them what to do because bless him, the man was made to take orders and not give them.)

“Logan,” Emma snapped. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. The odd hours, the tons of questions—and he was conveniently busy and couldn’t take a run yesterday. The guy who did do the run? Busted. Police nabbed him.”

Ah. Wyatt had to give his superiors something to work with and satisfy them while he tried to turn Lucy. Even though his ‘trying’ mostly amounted to continuing to boost Lucy’s ego and literally nothing else. Wyatt had never even discussed business with her—he knew Flynn would tear him a new one.

Flynn snorted. “Wyatt isn’t the mole. I can vouch for him on that.”

“And how exactly can you vouch for him?” Emma demanded. “How do _you_ know he’s not the mole?”

…Lorena had been fond of telling him that he needed to learn to think before he spoke. That sometimes, in a fit of panic, he would say something that would land him into, well, deep shit.

But Flynn had apparently never learned to listen to that particular bit of wisdom from his wife, beloved as she might have been, because he blurted out,

“Because Wyatt’s my boyfriend.”

* * *

Firth had a boyfriend.

Firth had a _boyfriend._

Not just any boyfriend, but Wyatt Logan, the new runner who’d been—well, Lucy didn’t like to assume things, didn’t like to be seen as being too full of herself, but he had been flirting with her, or so she’d thought. He’d been funny, and lighthearted, and sweet, and she’d had a little bit of a crush on him. She’d thought… well, she was wildly and desperately in love with Firth and had been for some time—as much as it annoyed her when Firth was being stubborn and sarcastic—but Firth didn’t return her feelings. His loyalty was absolute but he had made it clear time and again to her with his polite distance and careful avoidance of her touch that he wasn’t… that her feelings were not returned.

It made sense. He still wore his wedding ring, after all. She knew nothing about his dead spouse, other than that he was a widower. She’d assumed that he had simply… never moved on from that person and she had done her best to hide her feelings in fear of a gentle but still humiliating rejection and the ensuing awkwardness.

With Firth out of the question, why should she not have some fun with this runner? Mother and Cahill couldn’t know, of course. But Wyatt had seemed willing and she’d thought, well, he’d look rather pretty tied down in her bed.

Now—now it seemed she’d read it all wrong. And now she had lost not only her nice shiny distraction, but the man she still stupidly, hopelessly loved.

Well.

It wasn’t up to her who Firth was with, or who Wyatt was with. They were grown men, capable of making their own choices. As much as it might hurt, she had no hold over either of them. No right to judge or intervene.

So after she cried (twice) and wrote in her journal about it, she summoned Wyatt while Firth was out on an errand for her.

Wyatt looked nervous, stepping into her apartment. Lucy hadn’t had anyone in here besides Firth, not ever. It was her own private sanctuary. Unlike the rest of her life, everything in this apartment was carefully chosen by her, not anyone else, and done so to give her pleasure. No other purpose.

To her pleasant surprise, having Wyatt in there didn’t feel like an intrusion.

Wyatt looked around, his eyebrows raising, taking in the place. Lucy’s flapper dresses, the ones her mother would hate, were draped over the chaise, the coffee table had the newspaper spread out over it, marked with red pen on the articles her reporter friends Rufus and Jiya had written, and her bed was unmade.

Lucy hoped he didn’t mind the bit of mess. She didn’t.

“Sit down, please,” she said, indicating the table in the kitchenette. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Ah, no thanks. You got anything stronger?”

“Why, you think you’ll need it?” Lucy was wearing her white dress with the gold trim, and she noticed Wyatt’s gaze sliding over it appreciatively before catching himself and looking away, cheeks slightly pink.

Hmm. Looked like Wyatt played both sides of the fence, then.

“I’m not sure, ma’am,” Wyatt admitted.

Lucy walked over to sit on the table, indicating for Wyatt to sit on the chair in front of her. “I’m pretty sure we’re the same age. There’s no need for the ma’am.”

Wyatt sat down, still looking nervous.

Lucy cocked her head. “Were you flirting with me? All this time?”

Wyatt gaped at her. “What?”

“This whole time. While you were dating Firth. Moving in with him. Were you flirting with me.”

“Ah…” Wyatt could obviously tell that he was in dangerous waters. “Miss Preston, I’m a brand new runner. I’m not from around here. And you’re going to be the one in charge of this arm of Rittenhouse, you’re the heir. I figured, if I was friendly with you—and Firth speaks so highly of you. He really cares about you. I thought… you know… there was no way I could win him over if I didn’t win over you.”

That was… an angle she hadn’t considered and a surprisingly thoughtful one. “You care about him.”

Wyatt’s face flushed and he ducked his head down. “He looks out for me,” he mumbled.

“So it’s simply gratitude?”

Wyatt’s head shot back up, his eyes wide. “I—are you suggesting—I’m not with him because—it’s not transactional, I’m not getting fuckin’, this isn’t a prison wife scenario.”

Lucy nearly choked trying to stifle her laugh. She knew that Firth wasn’t an angel. He couldn’t be, working for Rittenhouse, even if it was to protect her. But she also knew he wouldn’t ever do something like that, exchange someone’s heart and body for protection or favors.

“I know,” she assured Wyatt. “Firth is an honorable man.”

Wyatt nodded. “He’s—I’m a mess, and I’ve been a mess, and he’s helping show me how to be less of one. Not that he’s not a mess himself, I mean you’ve seen him, but. He’s less of a mess than I am. Or at least he knows how much of a mess he is and I had. No clue. Or I thought I had a clue but it was… yeah. And he’s patient with me and he’s got this stupid sense of humor, always making me laugh and he’s so goddamn rude but he get away with it because he’s got this smile that…” Wyatt shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, like a golden retriever shaking water out of its fur. “Anyway, I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”

“No, I… I get it.” She really, really did get it.

Wyatt rubbed the back of his neck. “So—what is this meeting about?”

“It was just about letting you know—Firth is very important to me. I’ve known him for five years now.” _Loved him for five years now._ “And I know that he’s been through a lot. He deserves to be happy. And if you make him happy then I’m glad for you.”

Lucy leaned in, bracing her hands on the table to get good leverage. “But if you ever, do anything malicious, anything selfish, to hurt him. If you cheat on him, lie to him, go behind his back, steal from him, anything—you will learn just what it means that Rittenhouse blood runs in me. Understood?”

Wyatt stared at her, looking a little flushed, his breathing slightly shallow. Lucy reached down and brushed some lint off his shoulder and Wyatt’s breathing hitched.

Hmm. She didn’t do it, but she suspected that if she glanced down, she’d see his pants were a little on the tight side.

That gave her a small shiver, the idea that Wyatt liked it when she ordered him around. But attraction was fine, it was natural, it didn’t equate action, and she wasn’t going to do anything to help Wyatt cheat on Firth and she didn’t see him making any kind of move for it, either.

It was just unbearably frustrating. Why couldn’t she just have both of them and call it a day? Why was the universe taunting her?

“I’m waiting for an answer,” Lucy noted. “You’ll treat Firth right, or I will bury you and I mean that both literally and figuratively. Understood?”

Wyatt swallowed, his throat clicking dryly, and then nodded. “Yes ma’am. I understand.”

Lucy nodded. “Good. Can’t have my bodyguard slacking on the job because he has a broken heart.”

She worried she’d shown her hand a bit too much, in how she cared for Firth, but Wyatt didn’t seem to suspect a thing as she stood up and showed him out.

The soft _snick_ of the door shutting seemed to echo in the small apartment.

He really was so soft and pretty. Eager and ready for orders. If only she could have him, and have Firth, have them both…

Her hand slid up the skirt of her dress, fingertips gliding along her thigh, before she even realized she was moving to think about it.

Lucy snatched her hand away from herself. She couldn’t—could she?

Of course if neither man wanted her—she wasn’t going to—but it would be nice to imagine. Wyatt seemed to want her. She didn’t think, for all his protestations, that his interactions with her were simply to win her over because she was close to Firth.

If Firth could—if he did—he didn’t but if he did she could—

Oh, God, she was going to Hell for this.

Lucy practically ripped her dress off and fell against the bed. Two sets of hands on her—kissing both of them in turn, directing Wyatt down to mouth at her breasts—telling him just how to pinch them, roll them in his fingers…

She did it with her own hand, imagining it was his, her other hand sliding between her legs, stroking her stomach, her thighs—of course Firth would tease her until she ordered him and he always followed her orders and he’d set his tongue to her…

She’d tell him to get her good and wet and then she’d fuck him, and God he would, he would do it so eagerly, he was always so good at following her orders. Wyatt would be a little too eager and a little too sloppy, she could tell, but with a good guiding hand…

Lucy grabbed her own throat, squeezing lightly, then tugged at her hair as her fingers worked inside of her. And then—then—she’d fuck Firth so hard into the mattress, fuck him until he was begging her, and then she’d let him come—and then she’d get her hand on Wyatt and tell him to be good and hard for her and she’d finger Firth open and make him desperate all over again as Wyatt fucked him for her—

She slid a third finger into herself, all three moving slick and fast, staining the bed and her thighs with her arousal. Oh, God, yes, yes, right there—holding Firth’s wrists down and making both men beg her to let them finish and she’d let Firth come a second time but not Wyatt, no, he had to pull out and then he could fuck her, yes— _yes_ —Lucy’s mouth fell open on a soundless cry as she rubbed ferociously at her clit—he’d fuck her so hard and Firth would finger her just like this and she’d come until she screamed and Wyatt finally broke and sobbed and she’d let him come—oh _fuck_ —

Lucy sank boneless down onto the bed, sliding her fingers out, breathing heavily.

Oh, she was never, ever going to tell either of them, but God, if only—

She’d have both of them, heart and head and body, she’d make both of them hers.

* * *

Wyatt got down to street level from Lucy Preston’s apartment and immediately rounded the corner into the alley where he could collapse against the wall.

Holy shit.

When—when Flynn had lied to Emma about his relationship with Wyatt, he’d gone to Wyatt immediately and told him everything. “It was the only way I could keep you safe,” he’d said. “You had to be living with me for me to cover for you but if you were in another room or sleeping on the couch you could’ve theoretically snuck out… but if we’re together…”

It made sense, so of course Wyatt had gone along with it. It wasn’t ideal, sure. He wasn’t even into men. A few rough, dirty fucks in the mud of the trenches when you thought you were about to die didn’t count. That was desperation and need, not—nothing else.

And since he and Flynn were working together and he was over at Flynn’s apartment constantly it only made sense, really, to live there now, they were seeing each other all the time anyway and now Wyatt didn’t have to tramp home late at night after shooting the shit for hours.

And if Flynn was suggesting they share the bed instead of Wyatt camping out on the couch that only made sense too, it wasn’t like Wyatt was still unused to sleeping alone after Jess, or like he enjoyed Flynn’s warmth, or felt safer from both outside threats and his own mind with Flynn sleeping next to him.

Or anything.

Those were the things he’d been telling himself, anyway. In the month since Flynn had blurted out that excuse, they’d spent pretty much every moment together outside of work. The only person Flynn spent possibly more time with was Lucy. And in all that time… Wyatt had struggled not to…

He’d been telling himself _but you don’t like men_ a lot, in other words.

As he’d spoken to Lucy, though—as her dark, sharp gaze had born down on him—he’d been unable to escape the truth. Lucy had done her best to hide it, but Wyatt had seen it in her gaze, in the way she warned him—she was in love with Flynn.

And so was Wyatt.

Fuck. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Not at all. He was supposed to turn Lucy. Flirt with her and win her over emotionally if necessary. And Lucy was—holy shit, she was stunning. And yeah he’d been massively turned on while she’d spoken to him in her apartment, wearing that damn white and gold dress. It was probably fucked up that hearing a woman threaten him turned him on but hey, clearly that was the least of his problems.

But while actually wanting Lucy wasn’t on the list of things he was supposed to do, falling for Flynn? Definitely wasn’t. And one was so much more dangerous than the other.

Wyatt pushed himself off the alley wall and started walking ho—to Flynn’s apartment.

 _It’s not home,_ he told himself. It wasn’t home.

What was he supposed to tell Flynn? Nothing, actually, no, nothing, Flynn couldn’t—Flynn denied it up one side and down the other but he was so goddamn in love with Lucy it was ridiculous, and Wyatt couldn’t get in the middle of that, and he had his job and all, and Flynn had his, and—

He was almost back to the apartment when he got jumped.

Wyatt flailed, getting in a few good punches before he was thrown to the ground and a boot viciously stomped down on his face, his hand, kicking his ribs.

“What the fuck,” he snarled, grabbing the leg and yanking the guy to fall on his ass, then scrambling to his feet.

“Whitmore knows there’s a mole around,” one of the men said. Fuck, there were five of them. Wyatt swung at one, who ducked and grabbed him by the hair, slamming him into the wall face-first. “So she wanted us to have a little talk with you, see if you might be the one.”

“Get the fuck off me,” Wyatt snarled, even as his heart raced. Fuck, Emma still suspected him, what did that mean for Flynn, what did that mean for—

He was slammed into the wall again. “That’s not answering our questions.”

“You haven’t asked me any, dipshit.”

“Gotta loosen you up first, don’t we, hotshot?”

Wyatt grit his teeth. This was… going to be rough.

Flynn’s face when he gingerly opened the door to the apartment was—well. Wyatt had seen hurricanes that looked less threatening.

“What the fuck happened,” Flynn growled, storming over.

What had happened was he had a goddamn bloody nose, an aching jaw—an aching everything, actually—and a black eye.

“Could’ve been worse,” Wyatt mumbled. He grimaced down at his suit, which was now smeared with dirt and drops of blood, the latter from his nose. “They didn’t break anything.”

“Shit.” Flynn spat out some words in his native tongue and went into the kitchen, grabbing first aid supplies. “Sit.”

Wyatt sat on the kitchen table, wincing as it pulled at his bruised muscles. Fucking hell.

“Emma suspects me,” he explained. “She knows there’s someone.”

“Stop trying to talk,” Flynn snapped, moving to stand between Wyatt’s legs and starting to wipe away the blood and apply gauze and antiseptic. “Whitmore knows better than this,” he went on, that growl ever-present in his voice. “She knows that she’s got her department and I’ve got mine and if she even thinks of fucking touching you again—”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Right, yeah, you come in here looking like a battered wife or a drunk boxer… Christ almighty…” Flynn muttered some more in his native language, undoubtedly calling Wyatt all kinds of variations on the word ‘stupid’, but his hands were soft and quick and tender as they applied bandages, saving Wyatt’s bruised and split knuckles for last.

Flynn’s forehead nearly touched Wyatt’s as he looked down at the knuckles, wrapping the gauze over and around and through. “You’re not my property or my possession,” he muttered. “Nobody is. But as far as Emma knows, you’re important to me. And she should know that I defend the people who are important to me and I won’t let anything happen to them. It’s why she’s kept away from trying to influence or manipulate Lucy.”

Flynn tied off the gauze on Wyatt’s one hand, smoothing his thumb over it, and then started on the other hand.

Wyatt glanced up at Flynn through his lashes, trying to get a good look at Flynn’s face. Flynn seemed concentrated, irritated, and yet like he was trying to soothe, all at the same time. Wyatt carefully took in the deep lines, the pointed jaw, the furrowed brow, and wondered how the hell he’d ended up like this, sitting in a fucking dingy apartment in Chicago after he’d gotten the shit beat out of him and wondering if he’d have to bite clean through his tongue to distract himself from the urge to do something stupid like kiss the man in front of him.

Flynn finally finished with Wyatt’s second hand and did that thing with his thumb again, smoothing it over the knuckles, only this time he kept doing it, his thumb swiping slowly back and forth. “We’ll have to be more careful,” he said, his voice pitched low.

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah.” His voice felt constricted.

Flynn looked up at him, still holding onto his hand, but their foreheads were still practically pressed together, their faces only inches apart.

Breathing? What was breathing? Wyatt was kind of having a hard time with that.

He felt like he might pass out as Flynn’s gaze dropped down to Wyatt’s mouth, then flicked back up to his eyes.

“You’ll need to change your shirt,” he said.

Wyatt blinked. “What?”

Flynn stepped back, swallowing audibly. “Your shirt. It’s ripped. You’ll want to change, I think I can mend it.”

“Oh.” Wyatt struggled to do something with the useless heat now coursing through him.

“Pity,” Flynn commented as he grabbed his suit jacket. “The pink looked good on you.”

Wyatt wondered what the hell he was supposed to say to that, but then Flynn was striding out the door.

* * *

Flynn picked Lucy up at her apartment, double checking first that Wyatt hadn’t gotten any blood on Flynn’s new pale blue shirt and tan vest. That was one perk about this job. Lucy wanted to go out places, which meant her bodyguard had to fit in, which meant Flynn had to look good. The first time Flynn had seen the price on a properly tailored suit he’d nearly had his eyes popping out of his head, but he’d come to greatly enjoy selecting outfits for himself.

Lucy was looking rather fetching herself, wearing a dark green flapper style dress with sequins in an art deco design, her hair done up and adorned with a matching headband.

“How do I look?” she asked, twirling.

Flynn bit back what he really wanted to say, which was quite a number of ridiculous things, and instead settled on, “you look no less—you look good.”

“Quite the praise,” Lucy said dryly. “I was hoping to check in on operations today.”

“Of course.” Flynn offered her his arm.

The garage was running smoothly as they went in. Lucy began asking questions, as she always did, making sure everyone was being taken care of properly and getting paid, that all was well. She hated Rittenhouse but she knew most of the people who worked for them didn’t have a choice in the matter, and she wanted to look out for them.

She didn’t see it this way, but Flynn thought her the most compassionate person he knew.

As she spoke, Flynn looked around. Just keeping an eye on things, as a bodyguard should. Wyatt himself was over working on a car, back at work like he hadn’t gotten the shit kicked out of him earlier. To do anything else would’ve only lowered him in the eyes of the others, as much as Flynn hated it.

He couldn’t help but notice the knot of five men over on the far end, the men with scuffed shoes and bruised knuckles, a few of whom kept glancing nervously at Flynn.

Wyatt hadn’t told him who’d hurt him, but Flynn knew who Emma’s favorite enforcers were. And he knew that they knew they’d fucked up hurting someone Flynn had publicly declared as someone he cared about.

Flynn was moving before he realized it, anger shooting up from his gut into his throat, cocking his fist back and delivering a roundhouse that had the first man’s mouth filling with blood, no warning, just _anger_. He couldn’t avenge Lorena and Iris, at least not yet, but he sure as fuck could avenge Wyatt, he could make it clear that Wyatt was to be kept safe, they would never fucking touch Wyatt again—

He dimly heard shouting, but he didn’t care to figure out who it was or what they were saying. He was just going to make these bastards pay. He’d lost the people he loved once and he was not going through that again, not if he had to beat every single one of these bastards to a pulp—

“Firth, stop!”

Lucy’s hand grabbed his wrist as he cocked his fist back again, her grip like steel, her nails digging in. She swung around, putting herself between him and the other men.

Flynn realized how hard he was breathing, how there was a line of sweat beading at his hairline, how his tie was askew. Lucy put a hand on his chest, the other still holding his wrist.

“Stop,” she repeated, this time more quietly. “They’ve had enough.”

It wasn’t enough, it wasn’t ever enough, Lorena and Iris had died and Rittenhouse still existed, they put a noose around Lucy tighter and tighter until she wanted to die and they still existed, they nearly beat Wyatt to death and they still—existed—

“You’re a good man,” Lucy whispered. “You’ll hate yourself later if you do this, stop. Listen to me and stop.”

Flynn tore his gaze away from the men and looked down at her. Lucy’s gaze held no fear, no judgment, but neither was she backing down.

He slowly unclenched his fist and Lucy nodded. “Good,” she whispered.

The five men were on the floor, faces a mess of blood, eyes swollen shut, curled into themselves trying to shield their stomachs from the blows. They all looked terrified.

Well, good. They should be.

Flynn let the trembling in his body from the adrenaline subside as Lucy quietly straightened his tie again and got up onto her tiptoes to fix his hair. “There you are,” she said, her voice soft.

She stepped back, looking over Flynn’s shoulder. Flynn turned and saw that everyone, including Wyatt, was staring at the scene.

Wyatt’s eyes were wide and dark and he was breathing hard. Flynn thought for a second that Wyatt was scared, worried that Lucy with her background and after five years could accept Flynn’s darkness but that Wyatt couldn’t, that Wyatt would run or condemn him—

But then Wyatt looked up and locked his eyes onto Flynn, and Flynn realized what he was seeing wasn’t fear.

It was lust.

“I think you’ve all learned your lesson in what happens if you mess with my bodyguard,” Lucy said. “And that includes people who are important to him. My jurisdiction, not Whitmore’s. She tells you to bother them, you come to me, is that understood?”

Fucking bless her, she was taking responsibility for it, acting as though she had told Flynn to beat these men up, as if she’d seen Emma’s orders as some kind of breach upon Lucy’s authority.

Every time Flynn thought he couldn’t love her more, she would go and do something like that.

“I said, is that understood?” Lucy’s voice was a whip crack.

Everyone nodded, their faces pale.

“Good.” Lucy smiled brightly. “Back to work!”

Flynn watched her as she walked away, then made to follow, unsure who was stirring up more heat in his gut: Lucy with her authority, or Wyatt with his open yearning.

When he got back to the apartment that night after dropping Lucy off, it was to find Wyatt pacing.

“You all right?” Flynn asked.

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. Just. Y’know.” He gestured vaguely.

“I’ve seen you drunk off your ass, I’ve seen you cry, and I’ve seen you laughing until you fell off your chair. I know when you’re not all right, Wyatt.”

Wyatt ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “It’s really. Nothing.”

Flynn sighed. “It’s what I did in the garage, isn’t it?”

He walked into the kitchen. Perhaps he’d been mistaken in seeing that desire in Wyatt’s eyes earlier. Perhaps Wyatt’s goddamn pride was wounded from Flynn defending him.

If that was the case, Flynn did not want to have to deal with that. He grabbed a glass.

“I—maybe?” Wyatt looked around like a rabbit realizing he’d been caught in a trap. “I should go out on a walk, I—”

“Look if you feel like your pride was wounded because I stepped in—”

“What?” Wyatt looked confused. “I—what—no. I wasn’t—it was—you were—” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I’m sorry. I need to… I need to go.”

Flynn started to think maybe he hadn’t misread the situation after all. “Wyatt,” he said softly, setting down his glass. “Come here.”

Wyatt looked over at him. Flynn tapped the counter, indicating for Wyatt to come stand over there.

Wyatt walked over. “Yeah?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly.

Flynn took Wyatt’s chin in his hands and took his time leaning down, giving Wyatt time to move.

Wyatt made a tiny sound of desperation, and Flynn’s patience snapped. He’d been living with Wyatt, sleeping in the same bed as him, slowly but surely being driven to madness as he was torn between loving two different people—

He kissed Wyatt hard, a little messy, and Wyatt whimpered, grabbing onto him and practically vibrating. Somehow they ended up turning, clawing at each other, and he pinned Wyatt against the kitchen counter.

Wyatt hadn’t been with anyone since Jess had died, as far as Flynn knew, and Flynn hadn’t been with anyone in the six years since Lorena had died, and Wyatt was writhing and rutting and grinding without finesse or thought, warm and squirming and oh holy mother of—

“I want—” Wyatt moaned as Flynn shoved his legs apart and finally got a good angle. Flynn tried to keep his movements small and precise, to tease, to build it up, but Wyatt was having none of it. “Want you to be rough, oh my God, it was so fucking hot how you—you and Lucy, Jesus fuck I wanted—both of you so bad so fucking bad I want you both so fucking bad and you were just—please don’t hold back don’t hold back Flynn _Flynn_ —”

Flynn was losing his fucking mind. He grabbed Wyatt by the hair and held him in place, shoving his tongue into his mouth as he fucked up into him wildly, feeling Wyatt thrash. Wyatt’s fingers clawed at his arms strongly at first, then weakly, until he was just clinging clumsily and shuddering from head to toe and coming in his pants.

Flynn stepped back, undoing his pants. Wyatt looked dazed, like someone had dropped a piano on his head.

“You want me to be rough with you?” Flynn asked, shoving his pants down and stroking his cock. Jesus Christ he wanted to fuck Wyatt up.

Wyatt swallowed, then nodded.

Flynn grabbed Wyatt by the hair again and then guided him down onto his knees. “You know what to do,” he said, his voice a growl.

Just to be sure, he cupped Wyatt’s face softly, his thumb swiping back and forth.

Wyatt looked like he might actually orgasm again, and wrapped his hands around the back of Flynn’s knees, licking up his cock.

Flynn waited until Wyatt had gotten his cock good and slick and was bobbing up and down, then grabbed the back of his head again. “You ready?” he asked.

Wyatt flicked his gaze up and managed to nod, his gaze hot and dark. His mouth went slack, and his jaw dropped a little more.

Flynn began to rock his hips into Wyatt’s mouth. Just small movements at first, then more, harder, until he was fucking into Wyatt’s mouth and Wyatt looked like he was going to lose his fucking mind, making happy little noises. Flynn shifted his legs, trying to get a better stance, careful not to make Wyatt gag, and felt Wyatt against his leg—hard again.

“Mmm, eager little thing, aren’t we?” Flynn mused.

Wyatt rolled his hips, giving Flynn a pleading look up through his lashes.

Flynn nodded, sliding his leg further along so Wyatt could rut against it properly. “Go on, then.”

Wyatt whined and began giving tiny, desperate thrusts against Flynn’s leg, still letting Flynn fuck him, until Flynn could feel that tightening inside himself, the ball of yarn unraveling faster than he could keep track, and Wyatt moaned and took as much of him as he could, swallowing frantically. Wyatt’s hips couldn’t seem to stop moving and as Flynn pulled his cock out Wyatt’s forehead fell against Flynn’s thigh and he let out a stream of half-formed words, babbling, and then collapsing to the floor as he came.

Flynn sagged against the counter. Holy shit.

Wyatt looked up at him a long moment later, resting his head against Flynn’s knee. Flynn looked down at him, and began to pet Wyatt’s hair.

Wyatt closed his eyes, humming contentedly. Then his eyes opened again. “Garcia?”

Flynn started a little at the use of his first name. “Yes?”

“What will we do about Lucy?”

Flynn sighed, doubt and fear creeping into his heart again. “I don’t know.”

* * *

Of course she was going to let Firth beat the shit out of whoever had hurt his boyfriend. And of course she was going to stop him before he’d gone too far.

Once, early on in their friendship, after they’d gotten through their initial issues but before they had become so close they could be completely open with each other, Firth had warned Lucy. _I’m a monster. I was a father, once. A husband. I could never be that again, after the things that I’ve done. You don’t want to get too close to me._

Lucy had responded then just as she would respond now, had he repeated those words. _You’re not a monster. You can still have a family, if you wanted one._

But she also knew that sometimes, Firth could let himself go too far in his desire for vengeance, his need to protect—and if not protect, then avenge.

She had to protect him from himself. From painting another black mark onto his soul. Not that she thought he had any. But Firth, she had found, was a glutton for self-condemnation.

Firth had told her afterwards, though, why he had beaten up those men, about Wyatt, about Emma’s convictions.

And Lucy—Lucy was a rather suspicious person by nature. She had to be. Especially after Amy.

And she couldn’t help but wonder…

Rufus wouldn’t want to go around chasing possible leads for a mob princess but Jiya was always up for a good time. Lucy placed a call to the _Chicago Tribune_ and asked to speak with Miss Marri, then told Jiya what she wanted to find out.

It didn’t take Jiya long.

Jiya had this… odd knack. She called it hunches. Rufus called it hard work and tenacity and Jiya never giving up on anything ever because she as the most stubborn woman on the face of the planet. Lucy personally wondered, sometimes, if Jiya didn’t have some kind of pact with the fairies or something.

But however Jiya came across it, Jiya did have this talent—a talent for finding information that nobody else could.

And that was how two weeks later Jiya sent Lucy two files with a note attached.

_These are copies of the originals. Destroy copies when finished reading. And I mean destroy. Also you owe me lunch._

Lucy read the files and diligently made notes in her journal, copying the information just as she did everything else.

The whole time in the back of her mind she kept thinking, this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be happening.

Jiya wouldn’t make this up, though—and how could she?

Lucy’s entire world, the one thing she’d trusted, the one thing she’d thought was true, was a lie.

Joe Firth. What a joke. His name was Garcia Flynn, grew up in Dubrovnik, came to America after the death of his mother as a teenager in order to learn more about her life and heritage, joined the war, became a police officer, and lost his wife and daughter in a suspected mob hit six years ago. He’d been presumed dead as well.

This file didn’t say what happened to Flynn after all that. It just said that he was missing, presumed dead in the hit.

But she knew better.

Mob hit. That could only mean one thing. He was trying to destroy Rittenhouse, or he was working for Rittenhouse to try and destroy whatever other mob family had killed his wife and little girl. Iris Flynn had been five years old when she’d died. Five.

Had everything—his friendship, his concern, his care, all of it—been a lie?

She thought she might throw up.

Wyatt was upsetting as well, but far less so. His file was a lot more detailed. Born and raised in a small town in Texas, father was a cop, turned to running moonshine before he was drafted in the war. Came home, married his high school sweetheart, worked his way into the BOI, lost his wife, Jessica, to murder and was then assigned the undercover case of… of…

Of turning her.

Flynn had to know this. They were boyfriends, after all. Or maybe not. Well—no, they must be. Flynn had beaten up those men for Wyatt, and the anger and protective fury in him hadn’t been an act. There were feelings there, genuine ones.

But had they become a couple because they were both undercover? Was that how they had gotten so close?

She had nothing but questions, and no answers, and all that she knew for certain was that the man she had trusted and loved with everything in her had been lying, ever since they had met.

To her considerable self-disappointment, she, well.

She snapped.

All this time she’d felt like a bird in a cage, and now—now she felt even more trapped and closed-off and alone. So she… well. She smashed the coffee cups that Firth—that Flynn—had bought her, the ones they always drank from together. She screamed into a pillow until her voice was hoarse.

And then when Flynn arrived, she threw books at him.

Not her proudest moment.

By the time Flynn had talked her down, she felt a mess on every level.

At least it helped that Flynn’s head was now in her lap like a supplicant, his first frantic burst of kisses over, his hands bunched in the fabric of her black beaded dress. Lucy gently ran her fingers through his hair. “Would it help?” she whispered. “If I did what Wyatt came to get me to do? Would it help if I turned state’s witness?”

Flynn’s head shot up. “Lucy—”

“I know it’s dangerous. But… what else is there?”

Flynn stood up, looking out her window. Lucy grabbed onto the bottom of his bomber jacket, tugging. “Flynn. I’m serious. You know what I’ve asked of you. Get me out one way or another. It might not be safe to testify but is it really any less safe than this? Or getting me out another way? Or—”

“I can’t do it.” Flynn looked at her. “Lucy. I lost a wife and child in seconds, before I could even… think to defend them. I prayed to God for answers, I prayed to know what to do to avenge them… and he led me here.”

“To me?” Lucy’s voice came out softer than she intended.

Flynn stared at her with this look of… something close to worship. “I will not lose you. Even if you think you want to be lost. I know that I promised you but I can’t—I won’t—accept that fate for you.”

Lucy stood. “Then I’ll turn state’s witness, and we’ll get out. We’ll get out and we’ll be free.” She paused. “Us and… and Wyatt, if you want him.”

Flynn looked a bit startled, blinking rapidly. “You would be… Lucy I’ve loved you since… if you don’t want him…”

“I wouldn’t mind, having him,” Lucy admitted. “He’s been—he’s been a breath of fresh air, I think, that I needed. And you like him. You need him. You’ve looked better, since you’ve been with him.”

“I wasn’t with him. Not until—not until two weeks ago. After—after he was, ah, attacked.” Flynn winced, either in remembrance of the attack, or out of some kind of shame, or both, Lucy wasn’t sure.

“But you are now. And you care for him. And he was rather… well. Blatant in flirting with me. He makes me laugh, and I think—I wouldn’t mind.”

Flynn stared at her for a long moment, then looked away, clearing his throat. “If we really—we’ll have to talk to Wyatt of course. But if we’re doing this… us, but also turning you in as a witness…”

“We’ll plan carefully.”

“No, I—of course. But I was hoping… that illusionist you love so much is in town. Mr. Houdini.” Flynn looked like he was flinging himself off a cliff without a parachute. “I was hoping—before all of this starts. On both counts. If I might take you out, just the two of us, the way I’ve always longed to.”

She stared up at him. “You want to take me out on a date?”

Flynn nodded. “I don’t—we don’t—know what’s coming next. Or what might happen. And I just want… to go out with you, not as your bodyguard but as your…” He swallowed and cleared his throat.

“As my boyfriend?” Lucy teased. “My beau? My lover?”

Flynn flushed. “I’m serious, Lucy.”

She got up onto her tiptoes and kissed him softly, just barely catching his mouth with hers. “So am I.”

Flynn brushed his nose against hers and Lucy felt her heart curling up, wrapping like a warm cat around the fire of him, of Flynn.

If nothing else, she would have this one night with him.

* * *

Flynn had seen Lucy in many dolled-up outfits over the years, and he’d thought he’d gotten used to how stunning she looked.

Then he picked her up for their night out to see Houdini and he forgot how to breathe.

“Oh, Flynn.” Lucy turned around, showing just how low the dress dipped down her back. “Would you mind zipping me up?”

Flynn managed to make his feet move across the apartment to her, the heat of her body and the curve of her back almost undoing him as he took the zipper between his fingers and slowly guided it up into place.

Lucy turned around and they were pressed nearly chest to chest. “I’m ready to go,” she said, her voice low, sounding like her breath was stolen.

Flynn could only stare at her for a moment, the dark red of her dress not only naturally becoming on her but his favorite color—which she very well knew. Dewdrop ruby earrings dangled from her ears and her favorite sparkling black headband kept her hair back, matching the black lace designs on her dress.

God, she was stunning. And now he could actually tell her so, touch her if he wanted, he didn’t have to hold it in anymore, he had permission…

“We’ll be late if we don’t get going,” Lucy said, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards. She knew what she was doing, the minx.

Flynn forced himself to step back with a deep breath, holding out his arm for her. “Shall we then, Miss Preston?”

Lucy took his arm. “Lead the way.”

Lucy was absolutely delighted by the show, as he’d suspected she would be. She even got chosen to come up on stage and assist in a trick, which had her laughing and grinning disbelievingly at Flynn as if to say _did you see that? Did you see I helped him do that?_

Flynn caught the hands she reached out towards him as she came back to her seat. “That was amazing!” she whispered, gasping. Her smile was dazzling, wide and free, and he couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked like that, laughed like that, other than when Wyatt was teasing her.

He would have said goodbye to Wyatt if Lucy wanted, even though it would have hurt him. And he would have kept Wyatt if it made Lucy happy even if he’d hated the guy. But he didn’t hate him—far from it. And Lucy wanted Wyatt to stay too. They just had to play their cards right the next week or two and soon—soon it would all fall into place, he just had to keep Lucy safe until it all fell into place…

Flynn helped Lucy sneak backstage afterwards to say hello to Houdini, who was completely charmed by her because of course he was.

“And your name?” Houdini asked, after he insisted that Lucy call him Harry.

“Lucy,” Lucy said. Flynn noted that she carefully left out her last name. He didn’t blame her. She would have hated it if Houdini had recognized her last name and what it meant and had changed his behavior towards her as a result. It would have hurt her deeply.

They chatted for a bit, and then Flynn and Houdini shook hands, and reminded Lucy they had to get home—they still had to be careful about Carol finding out about these escapades.

Lucy said goodbye, and took his arm, and they started to walk out of the theatre.

“You had a good time?”

Lucy laughed, turning into his side, pressing her face against his arm. “Sweetheart, I always have fun with you.”

Flynn’s heart skipped a beat. Whether it was over the name, or the admission, he didn’t know. Both, most likely.

Lucy realized what she’d said and her mouth dropped open in that kind of disbelieving, embarrassed half smile that she tended to get instead of blushing. “I’m—I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t apologize,” Flynn managed. It was all he could manage.

Lucy pressed herself further against his side, a pleased smile on her face.

Flynn checked that they weren’t being followed as he walked her home. He never knew when another rival group, the Capones or the Malones, would try to take the Rittenhouse heir. Or if Nicholas Keynes would want to keep an eye on his potential future spouse—or potential future rival—or if Emma was getting too sneaky for her own good again.

No one seemed to be out.

When he got her to her door, Flynn intended to let her go inside. He had gotten what he’d always wanted—one of the nights out they always had, but not having to hide his besotted looks, his smiles, not having to hold himself back from taking her hand or drawing her into his side.

Lucy, though—Lucy took his tie in her hands, sliding it through over and over again. “Where do you think you’re going?” she whispered.

“I…” Flynn found himself frozen. “I thought…”

Lucy tugged on the tie, opening her front door behind her back and then tugging more insistently.

Flynn got the hint and followed her in, closing the door behind him.

* * *

Lucy pressed Flynn back against her front door, sliding up his body and getting up onto her tiptoes. Thank God, Flynn didn’t need more of a hint than that, and he kissed her as she brushed her mouth against his, his large hands spanning her waist, squeezing.

He’d been ready to go home? To leave her at her front doorstep without even a kiss?

Not after five damn years of tension, he wasn’t.

Lucy got her hands up to his shoulders, holding on as Flynn’s hands began to roam. They slid down, down to her ass, the backs of her thighs, pushing up her burgundy dress—the one she had chosen specifically for him—his thumbs rubbing circles on her bare skin.

“Five years,” Lucy whispered. “Five years I’ve wanted—Flynn—” She took a chance, trying his first name out on her tongue for the first time. “Garcia—”

Flynn made a desperate groaning noise at that and grabbed her roughly, hauling her up so that Lucy had to wrap her legs around him. He turned, pivoting, slamming her back against the door. Lucy moaned into his mouth, raking her fingers through his hair as Flynn used his hips to keep her pinned and shoved her dress up with his hands, sliding one between her legs.

Her head fell back against the door as Flynn kissed down her neck, biting softly, leaving a pleasantly stinging trail down to her breasts. His fingers found her slick folds, her clit—and that she was missing one vital piece of her underwear.

“Jesus Christ, Lucy,” he growled, a desperate, broken tinge to the edges of his voice.

“What can I say,” Lucy gasped, his thumb rubbing up against her, making her hips shake as buzzing pleasure built in her, “I was hoping to get lucky tonight.”

Flynn bit down on her nipple and Lucy choked on her next sound, whatever it would have been, unable to thrust properly while being pinned like this, able only to take what he was giving her.

It was like he couldn’t get enough of his mouth, his hands, on her, like he had to feel her orgasm or he’d die. Lucy whined softly as he slid two fingers into her, curling, testing, his thumb relentless, until she was sighing _oh, oh, oh,_ and coming.

Before she’d even started to come down from her high Flynn was moving, shifting, guiding himself in—and Lucy bit her way into his mouth, every nerve ending strung out and vibrating like on a violin. “Don’t you dare hold back,” she ordered, digging her heel into the small of his back. “Don’t you—don’t you dare—fuck—fuck me, Garcia, _Garcia_ —”

Flynn braced one hand against the door, the other wrapping around her lower back to tilt her hips and give better leverage. Fuck, _fuck_ , he was strong, holding her up and not once slacking in his pace, driving into her and she hadn’t even finished her first orgasm the second was building, building, build—

Lucy let out a small half-cry, half-sigh into his mouth as she came, clenching down around him, and she felt Flynn jerk in response, overwhelmed and possibly surprised by her orgasm. He groaned again and whispered repeatedly in a language she didn’t recognize, and then he was just chanting her name, _Lucy, Lucy, Lucy,_ like it was all he knew, and then he was spilling into her, and Lucy gripped him close and wanted to ride that moment forever.

Flynn carried her to the bed, and she curled around him immediately, not wanting him to leave her just yet. “Can you stay?” she whispered.

“It wouldn’t be safe. I’ve never stayed before.” There could always be someone watching.

Lucy sighed. She’d known the answer, but she had to ask anyway.

She pushed back some hair that had flopped down into his face, her thumb lightly tracing the curve of his face. “I love you.”

Flynn curled closer to her, his hands spanning her back, his eyes soft and adoring—his whole face soft and adoring—all of him curled around her like a shield. “I love you, _moja draga_.”

Lucy kissed him, and then again, and then once more, and then still more until Flynn had to tear himself away, half-laughing, half-regretful, leaving her to fall asleep, for once, somewhat happy.

* * *

Wyatt knew that he should be contacting his superiors at the BOI. He should be sending a report in right that minute, telling them that Lucy had agreed to turn on her family. He should be telling them to prepare an extraction and a case.

But he couldn’t.

Falling in love with Flynn had been a surprise. Falling in love with Lucy wasn’t. But that didn’t make it any less devastating.

Wyatt knew how the bureau worked. They didn’t care about the witnesses they turned so long as those witnesses were able to testify. Lucy wouldn’t be properly protected, not once the court case was over. All the bureau cared about was bringing the hammer down.

And these mobsters could be awful. No doubt about it. They were violent and brutish and distrusting. But they also gave back heavily to their communities, they helped out the people they considered their own, and Wyatt didn’t see how the corrupt police and the heartless bureau, one drunk on power and the other only caring about maintaining the status quo and the bottom line, were any better.

He hated Rittenhouse for how they treated Lucy and for what they’d done to Flynn. But he wanted Lucy safe, safe above all.

There seemed to him only one person he could trust.

Getting an audience with Denise Christopher was easy once he flashed his badge, although she seemed less than impressed with him once he was in her office. She was even more intimidating in person than in the newspaper pictures, her dark eyes slicing right through Wyatt until he felt she could see every raw, beating piece of his heart.

“You’re completely out of my jurisdiction you realize this.”

“I know. But—you’re Flynn’s boss. He’s been reporting to you, and only you, this entire time.”

“Yes. And?”

“You care about him, then. He’s been feeding you good information, I know he has. He’s ten times the undercover guy I am. Ma’am, I know I don’t have the right to ask you for anything, but if I go to my superiors—they won’t care if they expose him along the way. They won’t care if Lu—if Miss Preston is exposed to danger once they get the big fish in jail the way they want. I simply don’t trust that they’ll look after them. But if you could help us—if you could keep her safe—both of them—”

Christopher looked at him for a moment, her gaze shrewd. “You’re willing to give up your own investigation in exchange for my assistance in getting them a safe extraction and protection?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am.”

Christopher looked a little disbelieving, but after a moment, she nodded, sitting back in her chair. “All right. But you better have a guarantee for me on this, Logan. You and Flynn. I’m a female chief of police, you know how that looks to a lot of people. I can’t afford to fuck it up.”

“You won’t. I promise. Miss Preston wants to testify.”

“Then we’ll be in touch. I know how to reach Flynn and he knows how to reach me.”

Wyatt nodded and stood up to go.

“Mr. Logan?”

He looked back at her.

“Does Flynn know about this plan?”

“Not yet, ma’am, I wanted—it’s my operation. The turncoat, I mean, that’s on me, not him. I know his job was simply to gather intelligence. But he’ll agree. I think he’s wanted to turn Miss Preston for some time, ma’am, but didn’t think you’d agree if he asked. But… I wanted confirmation, before I talked to him. Confirmation that our cooperation was a go.”

Christopher nodded. “Have Flynn contact me soon as he can.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Flynn wasn’t in the apartment when Wyatt got home. That was fine. He’d be back soon and Wyatt could explain it all then.

He set his keys and hat down on the table and saw that the kettle was on.

Flynn must have just stepped out for something, then, he wouldn’t leave it on all day like that and Wyatt certainly hadn’t done it.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Emma drawled, “but I made myself a cup of tea while I waited for you.”

Wyatt whipped around to see Emma standing there with four Rittenhouse enforcers. She folded her arms, smiling at him like Wyatt was a juicy steak. “I’m so glad to have confirmation about my suspicions, Agent Logan.”

Wyatt’s stomach went cold.

“It’s fascinating,” Emma went on, “what you can find reading someone’s journal.”

Oh no. Lucy. Lucy, was she okay, was she—

Emma snapped her fingers, and the four men dove for him—and Wyatt had a lot more to worry about than just whether or not Lucy was okay.

* * *

Flynn’s one consolation in being bound and beaten on the cold concrete was that he’d gotten in a few damn good licks of his own along the way. It had taken six of them to wrangle him into this situation and all six men were now sporting bruises and fat lips. One of them had a broken hand and another had gotten stabbed with his own shank.

Actually, Flynn wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been stabbed. What were they keeping him alive and—relatively—unharmed for?

A few more men walked up, led by…

Oh, fucking hell. Emma.

The men behind her were dragging someone—someone who was struggling mightily against the ropes around his wrists and the men holding him.

“Mother _fuckers_ ,” the person said, and Flynn’s stomach went cold.

“Wyatt?”

Wyatt was dumped next to him, spitting blood, and Flynn’s entire body went up in flames. “You’re going to die for this,” he snarled up at Emma.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve been told that,” she replied calmly, looking down at them like they were two particularly juicy mice and she was a starving cat. “And how wrong all of those people were.”

Flynn managed to scoot over to Wyatt, he was breathing heavily in that way that meant he was trying to regulate his breathing and prevent a panic attack. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m here, just look at me.”

Christ. Wyatt had one eye swollen shut, dried blood trailing down from his nose, a split lip and God knew what else hidden under his torn and rumpled shirt. Flynn hooked his chin over Wyatt’s head, allowing Wyatt to tuck his face into Flynn’s neck.

Emma made a few derogatory remarks. Flynn ignored her, even though every instinct screamed at him to rip his hands free and throw her into the dark water with a block of cement around her neck. Wyatt was trembling against him and that was what mattered—comforting Wyatt as much as he could, even as he knew… there was little he could do, right now, to keep the man he loved safe.

There was the sound of a car pulling up, tires crunching on gravel. “Garcia?” Wyatt whispered, barely audible, his voice thick.

“It’s okay,” Flynn whispered. “I’m here, it’ll be okay. I’ve got you.”

He heard the car doors opening and managed to jerk his head up enough to see what was going on.

His heart stopped.

Carol Preston was dragging someone out of the back of the car—someone who was hissing and kicking like an alley cat.

Lucy.

* * *

Lucy struggled to keep herself from hyperventilating as she was dragged out of the car. She’d known something was wrong the moment that she was called to Carol’s office—even before she’d seen her journal lying on the table, Emma standing next to Carol with a triumphant Cheshire cat smirk on her face.

Lucy would have liked nothing better than to scratch Emma’s eyes out. In that moment, oddly enough, she’d recalled going to see a production of _Titus Andronicus_ with Flynn as her ever-present guard and wondering what could make people so full of rage that they could torture one another like that.

Now she knew. If she’d been able to cut out Emma’s tongue and hands, she would have, without a second’s hesitation.

“You’ve been found out,” Emma had said, while Carol had looked at her with disappointment. “You and your boytoys.”

Now, Carol was dragging her to where Flynn and Wyatt were on their knees, hands bound, gags being worked over their mouths so they couldn’t speak. Wyatt’s eyes were wide and she could see defiant fire and unwelcome fear warring in his gaze, while Flynn just looked—well. The low, constant growl he was giving was a pretty good indication of how he was feeling.

Lucy’s heart threw itself again and again up into her throat, and she couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

Emma produced a gun and gestured with her free hand for the various men standing around them to take a few steps back. Fuck. There were at least ten of them, too many to take out, not on her own, not with Flynn and Wyatt’s lives in the balance.

Both men looked horribly banged up. Lucy wanted to rush to them, to check their injuries, kiss each bruise, and rip limb from limb everyone who’d dared to touch them.

Emma raised the gun, but not to aim it at one of the men.

She was offering it to Lucy.

“You have a choice,” Carol said, releasing Lucy’s arm. Lucy didn’t have to look to know that there would be marks from Carol’s nails marring the skin. “I’m giving you the privilege of keeping one of them.”

Lucy whipped around to stare at her mother. “What?”

Flynn’s growl intensified. Wyatt just looked confused.

Carol shrugged. “Mafia dons have kept women. Why should you not have a kept man, if you want one? Firth—or Flynn, I should say—has protected you well all these years. And the other, Logan, he seems like he’d be a nice treat.”

Lucy instinctively stepped in between, cutting Wyatt off from her mother’s line of sight.

“You’re my daughter. It’s obviously time you were disciplined. I’ve been too lenient, too trusting. But I don’t want to punish you too far. So. If you kill one… you get to keep the other.”

Lucy thought she might vomit, she couldn’t breathe, her knees shaking. “And if I refuse?”

“Then I kill both of them,” Emma said. She flipped the gun back so that she had a good grip on the handle and pointed it right at Flynn’s head.

Lucy ruthlessly strangled the cry that nearly shot out of her. She wasn’t giving Emma the satisfaction.

Flynn’s gaze was boring into hers, trying to tell her something, trying to—comfort her? Advise her? Something. But with his mouth covered, she couldn’t tell what.

Lucy swallowed. “You’re right,” she said, drawing herself up.

She was the daughter of a mafioso. She had been raised in this. Flynn had always said that she was brave, that she was smart, that she should defend that. Somewhere in her blood, there were shards of steel.

She just had to find them.

Lucy turned to her mother. “I’ve been rather indulgent with myself, haven’t I?” she asked, as if this was a conversation over tea. “I let myself get carried away. I took it too far.”

She held out her for the gun. “May I?”

Emma took it, eyeing her warily.

Lucy had little doubt that Emma had a second gun on her. She’d have to be careful.

She walked up to Flynn, putting the muzzle to his forehead. Wyatt made an agonized sound. Flynn kept his gaze locked onto hers, though, and in his eyes she saw nothing but acceptance.

 _It’s okay_ , he seemed to be saying.

Lucy swallowed, blinking as tears stung her eyes. “Close your eyes,” she whispered.

Flynn didn’t move.

Lucy cocked the gun, took a deep breath—

And swung around, firing right into Emma.

Her aim was off, since she was trying to move at the same time. She hit Emma’s throat, not her head. It meant Emma took a few seconds longer to die.

Lucy hated herself for feeling a perverse sort of satisfaction about that.

All the men raised their guns, but Carol said, “Stop!” in her sharpest tone.

Lucy aimed her gun at the ground. “You gave me two choices. Now I’m giving you two, Mother.” She pressed her legs up against Flynn, feeling the warmth of him, her free hand moving back to slide into Wyatt’s hair.

Flynn turned his face and pressed it against her thigh, comforting and, she hoped, being comforted. She could feel Wyatt struggling not to shake, just as she was. Whether it was adrenaline, rage, fear, or all three, she didn’t know.

“You always call the shots, but if I’m to be your heir, then I think it’s time I started calling a few of my own, don’t you?” she suggested.

“You just killed our best lieutenant.”

“Our lieutenant who constantly spies on everyone for her own ends, who broke into the room of the heir, who whispers in your ear like Iago.” Lucy lifted her chin, tightening her hand in Wyatt’s hair and pressing harder up against Flynn. “I got rid of a woman who would have eventually been a threat to us.”

Carol seemed to consider this. Lucy kept talking, before her mother could interrupt and take over again, the way she always did.

“You have two choices, Mother.” She took a deep breath. “You can kill them, one or both, it doesn’t matter, and then you can spend the rest of your life dealing with me as I fight you. I will never stop fighting you. I will undermine everything, I will ruin every social gathering, I will mess up shipments, I will mismanage funds, I will be an embarrassment and a shame to you until the day you finally decide to end my misery and put me in the ground with my sister.

“Or—of you can let them go. And I will take over the family business, and I will be the good, dutiful, attentive heir that you desire. I will obey your every word, I will pick someone to marry, someone of whom you approve, I will wear whatever clothes you pick out for me, I will be all that you want.”

She could hear Flynn behind his gag yelling her name—it was muffled, but she had long ago memorized the way his tongue curled around those syllables, the exact unique cadence of it in his mouth.

Carol was considering. Lucy recognized the slightly pursed mouth, the pinched corners of her eyes.

“I will find every way to defy you,” Lucy whispered. “You can’t find all the leaks, you can’t stop me completely, you can chain me to the bed and I will still fucking find a way. Or you can have everything you wanted in a daughter.”

Carol leveled her gaze at her, and Lucy found she had no air in her lungs. If Carol said to kill them anyway—

“Let them go,” Carol said.

Lucy nearly collapsed.

Flynn was pressing himself so hard against her leg she thought he might somehow become a part of her. He wasn’t happy, not at all—while Wyatt’s shakes could mean possibly any number of things, Flynn’s minute trembling was unquestionably rage.

Lucy loosened her death grip on Wyatt’s hair, gently petting through it, pushing it back away from his sweat-damp face, everything she wanted to say choking her.

“Give me the gun,” Carol ordered.

Lucy released the men and walked over to her mother, handing over the gun.

Carol pocketed it. “You are lucky I appreciate that fire, Lucy. I always knew you had it in you somewhere. It’ll be useful to you in this business.”

If only her mother knew just what sort of fire she’d started.

* * *

Wyatt winced as his gag was yanked off and his hands unbound, shaking them out to try and get some circulation back into them.

Carol’s men were keeping their guns trained on the two of them, so as much as Wyatt wanted to rush them and try to yank Lucy free… he had to admit that was as suicidal as it could get.

“Wait—” Lucy was being led back to the car by her mother, who had a firm arm around Lucy’s waist. “Wait—wait let me—let me say goodbye, please—Mother please—”

Flynn looked agonized as he was freed, like it was taking everything in him not to say to hell with it, if he could reach Lucy, touch her, one last time.

“Mother, Mother _please_.” Lucy’s voice was reaching a hysterical pitch.

Carol paused. The look she cast back at Wyatt and Flynn was one a person might give to an unfortunate stain on the floor. “Very well. But be quick.”

Lucy tore herself away from Carol, careening into Wyatt full-force before steadying herself. “Look after him,” she whispered, her hands smoothing over his chest, and then she was wrapping her arms around him and jumping up a little, sending Wyatt stumbling just a bit, and kissing him.

There was no chance to linger, the way it ought to have been with a first kiss. Before he could even get his hands around her waist she was slipping away, a smear of lipstick on his mouth the only memento.

Flynn looked like a man about to be hanged as Lucy approached him. Wyatt was terrified one of them would break, because if one broke the other would as well and he didn’t know how to put either of them back together again.

He couldn’t say who moved first—Lucy or Flynn—but then they were kissing like it was truly the end of the world. Flynn had both arms around her, scooping her up against his chest, and Lucy had her fingers hungrily embedded in his hair.

“Lucy!” Carol barked.

Lucy ripped her mouth from Flynn’s, her hands sliding down to tug at his coat, his tie, as if she was trying to hold him together. Flynn pressed his forehead to hers. “Don’t,” he whispered, his voice cracking, rough-edged, shattered. “Don’t, Lucy, don’t, don’t, don’t—”

Wyatt moved in between as Lucy pulled back, grabbing Flynn and holding him in place as Lucy quickly backed away. Flynn was heaving, shaking, an earthquake in human form.

Lucy was bundled into the car by her mother.

And then she was gone.

Flynn sagged and Wyatt just managed to somewhat catch him, guiding his fall until Flynn was back on his knees on the ground.

“Garcia,” Wyatt whispered. “Garcia, what do we do?”

Flynn swallowed, closing his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“But you always know.”

“Not always.” Flynn opened his eyes again. They looked like two black holes.

He didn’t have to say it. Wyatt understood. Flynn had lost one family, one woman he loved—to lose another, like this, it would break him. It was breaking him.

And Wyatt loved Flynn. Loved him like a hurricane, loved him with a disastrous desperation that he couldn’t even dare to stop. And he hoped—believed—that Flynn loved him back, because Flynn had said he did, and Flynn was the most honest person Wyatt had ever met. Ironic, considering Flynn was an undercover cop who had lied with his entire being about it for a few years.

But whatever love Flynn had for him, that was… new. A product of a single year.

Flynn had loved Lucy for years and years. Without ever a hope of her loving him back. He had burned for her steadily, unendingly, not even like a star that could only be seen during certain times of the year like Orion or one of those other formations. He was Polaris, the north star, ever constant.

And now—now that the impossible, to Flynn’s mind, miracle had occurred and Lucy loved him back, loved him just as deep and just as true… she was taken from him. Ripped from him, savagely and coldly.

Wyatt didn’t even know how to begin to comfort him.

For a moment they remained there, Wyatt holding Flynn as best he could as Flynn shuddered but did not, even in this torment, cry.

And then Flynn’s breathing changed.

He pulled back from Wyatt and reached into his jacket, an odd expression on his face. Out of the inner pocket, the large one where he always hid his Austen novels, was…

Wyatt recognized it instantly.

Lucy’s journal.

* * *

Finally getting to fuck her bodyguard had not been the only success from her night out to see Houdini perform.

During their after-performance talk, Houdini had, eager to show off a bit for her, taught her a few little tricks.

“You could easily be a pickpocket, Miss Preston,” he’d told her, showing her how he swapped real handcuffs for the ones with the special clasp he could easily unlock with a finger. “Your hands are so soft, and your movements light and quick, you’d be a huge success.”

She hadn’t learned nearly all that she wanted to, but she had learned three things:

  1. How to swap items.
  2. How to take an object from someone without the person realizing.
  3. And how to plant an object on someone, without anyone seeing.



When she’d entered her apartment that day, she had known at once that someone had been there. Flynn had taught her long ago how to arrange a bit of string or a small piece of paper so that if someone entered, it would be disturbed. She had one set up at the window, one at the door, and had arranged her desk items just so.

It had been the work of moments to realize her journal was gone—precious moments, since she had only just finished when the summons had come for her to go and see her mother.

There had been no time to think. She’d gone instead with instinct. _Atta girl, Lucy, defend your territory. You’re the expert. You can do this._

Her journal had been nearly full, so she’d purchased a second one. It sat with her Sherlock Holmes novels on the bookshelf, since she’d thought the leather bindings matched nicely.

She had grabbed it and hidden it down the front of her skirt, held against her stomach by her underthings, just as she’d had to leave the room.

While in her office with her mother, getting lectured and threatened and cajoled by turns, she had waited until both women were distracted—and swapped out the journals.

Then it had simply been a matter of getting that journal to Flynn. Hence the passionate kiss, the touching, the smoothing of his jacket.

Not that she wouldn’t have done that anyway. Because she most assuredly would have.

But now—now the journal was in Flynn’s hands. Everything about the Rittenhouse mafia group, the Cahills, the Prestons, all of it, laid down in careful detail for everyone to see, and written in the very hand of Lucy Princess Preston.

She had to pray that Flynn would use it wisely. She had to pray that she would see her boys again.

* * *

Flynn took the journal right to Denise.

Literally.

“This better be good,” she said when Flynn called her from a payphone as Wyatt kept watch outside, uneasy without a gun. Flynn didn’t blame him. Wyatt was a crack shot but his hand to hand combat skills could use some work.

“Trust me, it’s good,” Flynn assured her. “I’ll come to your house.”

“What about your cover?”

“Let’s just say that’s not a problem anymore.”

Denise opened her front door after Wyatt and Flynn literally walked across town—their pockets had been emptied so they had no cash for a cab—and eyed them up and down. “You both look like Hell.”

“Thanks, we just got back,” Flynn replied. “Thought I’d check out how the ice is holding around ol’ Luci there.”

“Don’t you make Dante jokes at me, you Catholic shit,” Denise replied. “Just get your troublesome ass in my house.”

“Wyatt Logan, Denise Christopher.”

“We’ve met,” Denise said briefly.

Huh, how about that.

Michelle was standing at the foot of the stairs, wrapped up in a robe. Flynn had met her a few times, but he didn’t think Wyatt had. “Wyatt Logan, Michelle Christopher. Michelle, this is Wyatt Logan, BOI. Washington sent him undercover because they’re idiots.”

“Hey,” Wyatt protested.

“I never said you were an idiot, tiger, slow your roll. But you’re shit at undercover work.”

Wyatt shrugged as if to say _fair enough_ , and then winced when it pulled at his wounds.

Michelle tied her robe closed and put her hands on her hips. “You boys been through the wringer. Sit down, I’ll patch you up.”

“Been through worse, ma’am,” Wyatt replied.

Flynn had seen the shrapnel scars on Wyatt’s back, and understood.

Michelle made a _tssk_ ing noise. “Doesn’t mean I’m letting you sit around bleeding all over my kitchen.”

Wyatt, who knew an order when he heard one, sat down.

Flynn sat next to Wyatt, and then tossed the journal across the table at Denise.

Denise picked it up. “This? You go undercover for five years and this is what you bring me?”

“I’m bringing you the goddamn book of revelations, Denise. I’m bringing you the holy grail.”

Denise opened the journal to the first page and her eyebrows flew up. “Lucy Preston?”

“She gave it to us.”

“So she’s turning state’s witness? Logan’s goal succeeded?”

“She’ll turn—but she’s not with us. She wasn’t, ah, able to join us.” Flynn tried to keep the emotion out of his voice. How much trouble was Lucy in? How much control was her mother exerting over her?

What if by the time Denise got the team together, it was too late for Lucy?

Wyatt’s hand curled around Flynn’s thigh, not squeezing, just resting there as a warm, comforting weight.

Flynn knew what Lucy had said to Wyatt, even if he hadn’t been able to hear it. _Look after him_.

He appreciated that Wyatt was trying, and laid his hand over Wyatt’s, interlocking their fingers. He wouldn’t be whole until he had Lucy back, but Wyatt still held a piece of him, and Flynn was glad that he at least got to have this piece here with him, while he waited until he could get the whole piece back and possibly, hopefully, at last, feel complete again.

“Everything you need is in there,” Wyatt said, picking up the thread as Flynn struggled to speak through his reverie. “When you make the arrests, just bring Lucy to a safe house and then she can testify at trial. She has even more information than what’s in the journal but the journal should be more than enough to get the ball rolling. She lists the people in city hall who are on the Rittenhouse payroll, she has account numbers from the banks, she has dates and times of shipments, there’s even a diagram of a car showing how they hide the moonshine.”

Denise flipped through, her eyebrows staying raised as she took it all in. “This goes back years.”

“Lucy’s thorough,” Flynn managed.

Michelle returned with gauze, bandages, and other supplies. “All right, boys, shirts off.”

Flynn winced as he took off his, the adrenaline fading and his pain starting to really make itself known. Wyatt’s back and chest were an absolute mess, mottled purple and blue, and Flynn wanted to kill every single son of a bitch who’d touched him.

He gestured for Michelle to start on Wyatt, and then listened carefully as Denise outlined the plan. “So it’s enough?” he confirmed.

Denise closed the journal, nodding. “It’s more than enough.”

* * *

Flynn held him extra tightly that night.

They couldn’t go back to their apartment, obviously, so Denise put them up in Olivia’s room and Olivia slept with her mothers. The bed was small, but Wyatt knew that wasn’t why Flynn was draping himself over and around Wyatt like he thought gunmen were going to come in the night and he needed to shield Wyatt with his body.

Wyatt gently carded his fingers through Flynn’s hair, remembering what Lucy had said. He’d look after Flynn—he might fail, but God, he would fucking try, he’d try with everything in him.

And hopefully soon Lucy would be back to look after him, too.

* * *

A month later, they arrested her. Of course they did.

Lucy was glad she was dressed nicely for the occasion. There were reporters, of course, and their cameramen with their large flashbulbs over their cameras, blinding her. She tried to keep her head up and her back straight, to look calm.

She was separated from Carol almost immediately, and spent a humiliating twenty minutes being frisked and interrogated and examined until a woman entered—a woman that Lucy instantly recognized as Chief Christopher.

Christopher barked at everyone to start treating their star witness with more respect, had Lucy’s handcuffs removed, and escorted her up to her office.

“The trial is going to be a long and arduous process,” Christopher warned her. “And even though she’s your mother, you can’t count on Carol not wanting to eliminate you to save her empire. Or that another Rittenhouse person won’t try something.”

“You arrested them all, didn’t you?”

“Down to the last lowly enforcer. But we want to be careful, so I’ve assigned you two bodyguards.”

Christopher opened the door to her office.

Flynn stood up the moment the door opened, turning, his eyes landing on her. Wyatt jumped up a second later, realizing what was happening.

Christopher nodded at them all, and then closed the door behind her as she exited.

Lucy started to shake, unable to move, half-convinced that it was all a dream, and Flynn rushed to her, pulling her into his arms. “Lucy. Lucy it’s okay, it’s all right, Lucy—”

She clung to him, sobbing, the way she hadn’t been able to on that horrible night, the way she hadn’t been able to for a whole month. She buried her face in his chest, inhaled deeply, pressed herself to him, shaking, her legs not even holding herself up anymore, just his arms.

At last she gathered herself together enough to tilt her face upward. Flynn understood at once, his hand coming up to gently cradle her cheek and jaw as he kissed her, just as deep as their last one but not nearly so frantic because they had time, they had _time_ , they didn’t have to say goodbye.

Lucy brushed her nose against his, feeling his warm breath against her lips, his eyelashes sweeping against her cheek. He was alive, and safe, and hers.

She turned to look at Wyatt, who was hovering a bit awkwardly. Poor boy. She’d only kissed him the once, and they’d never quite laid out what their plan was, the three of them. But he loved Flynn, and Flynn loved him, and Lucy held a special softness for him.

“Come here,” she ordered, her voice gentle.

Wyatt walked over, and Lucy took his chin in her hand, slowly, sensually kissing him, until she felt Wyatt swaying on the spot.

“Did you take care of him?” Lucy asked.

“Yes ma’am, best I could.” Wyatt gave Flynn a wry look. “Far as he’d let me, anyway.”

Lucy laughed softly, then looked at Flynn. “Do we really get this?”

Flynn nodded. “Yes. Yes we do.”

Lucy held on to both of them tightly and breathed deeply—her first moments not as Princess Preston, but as Lucy, Lucy who was simply herself, Lucy who was loved.


End file.
